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Friday, 12 September 2014

Enough

This is different from anything I’ve posted
previously on this blog. It’s edited from a Facebook status update (on 11
September) that grew and grew – surely the longest I’ve ever shared. Some may
even feel that it’s incompatible with a blog that tends to reflect a Buddhist
(though secular) outlook – I don’t know. I just know that I wanted to share.
I’ve seen and read about so much bloodshed in the past fifteen years. Certainly,
I regard the events of 11th September 2001 as a terrible atrocity.
My heart tells me that, and international law tells me that. But I am tired of
reading those words, ‘Never Forget’, as if the million or more deaths that
followed, supposedly in response to that criminal act, are less important –
less worthy of remembrance. To me, 20th March is the anniversary of
a far bigger tragedy than 9/11, and an even greater crime. So I want to share
the feelings, some of the thoughts behind that remembrance. I also think that
these feelings spring from the same part of me that’s attracted to Buddhist
ethics and practices. I kind of float in and out of Buddhism just as I float in
and out of a very limited form of peace activism. But the source of both in me,
the core values of justice and peace, the horror of bloodshed and inhumanity,
remains constant.

TRIGGER
WARNING: Although I’ve tried not to be gratuitous in
describing the visceral effects of war, there may be passages that would be
traumatic or harmful for some people to read. One particular sentence comes to
mind. It was important to me to express, however briefly, something of the
reality of war, as an antidote to the newspeak through which it is often
presented. Clearly, however, I don’t want my words to hurt anyone, so it’s up
to the reader’s best judgement as to whether to read further.

Thirteen years ago, when the US was attacked
by mostly Saudi Arabian criminals, I tended to see war as something that
happened on the news. I didn't like it, but I didn't feel very personally
involved. By 2003, when mostly American criminals attacked Iraq, I was politicised - and like at least a
million other people in the UK,
I took to the streets.

After becoming chronically ill a year later with neuropathic pain, I spent several years campaigning
against various related War in Terror issues, but mostly the war on Iraq. I had to
give it up eventually because the continuing sense of horror, and the pressures
I was putting on myself, became too much for me and I broke down. But for a
couple of years I kept myself aware and informed, and I felt very emotionally
involved. When people questioned my views I defended them, arguing often and at
great length. I tried to be logical and I knew I was much more knowledgeable
than I'd used to be, but the passion always came through. And of course, I got
nowhere. People who believed in war continued to do so, and my mind didn't
change either.

Now, and especially since Israel's latest barbaric assaults on Gaza, I feel like I can
hardly be bothered to discuss it. I've seen and read about so much insanity,
cruelty and horror, that I don't have much respect left for the views of people
who defend, say, the Iraq War, or Israel's slaughter of the Palestinians. I
even find it a bit difficult to want to stay friends with people who espouse
such views. I know, of course, that they have a moral and legal right to
express them, and much of my peace activism was concerned with defending the
right to free speech. I know that it's a fact of life that my friends and I
aren't going to agree on everything, and that in some ways this is a good
thing. But increasingly, I seem to have no respect for pro-war views. I mean,
for frack's sake, have people never heard of international law, or the UN
Charter???

International law is meant to protect all of us
from the chaos, the slaughter and the 'scourge of war'. The UN Charter permits
going to war only in very rare and desperate circumstances. It's not okay, for
instance, to respond to terrorist attacks by fighting a war that causes
suffering and death to millions of people who had nothing to do with those
attacks. That simply trashes the memory of the victims of 9/11 in the worst way
imaginable. And international humanitarian law declares that in those rare
circumstances where war is necessary, it's a crime to target civilians or civilian
infrastructure, no matter what the reason or provocation. It is never, ever
okay to not discriminate between a military enemy and innocent civilians. It is
never, never, NEVER okay to murder children!

In reality, and increasingly it seems, war never
follows the rules laid out in the UN Charter and the Geneva Conventions. It
sometimes seems to have good intentions, but those are almost always based on
lies, lies used to justify wars that shouldn't even be taking place. And no
military, anywhere, seems to translate international humanitarian law into
practice. Whole suburbs or even towns are flattened in order to kill a few
terrorists. In the case of Iraq,
a whole country was virtually destroyed. Large parts of Gaza
look like Hiroshima after the bomb, and little
Palestinian girls are decapitated (aren't we supposed to be better than ISIS?), disembowelled or, in one photograph that I can't
forget, have the back half of their skulls blown off. Sometimes the military
gets its man (and sometimes not), but it often takes a hundred or a thousand
more people with him. Some estimates suggest that a million Iraqi people died
as a direct result of the 2003 invasion. Women get killed. Old people with
dementia get killed. Children get killed. Babies get killed. It's a wonder that
every single person in those countries doesn't hate us. It would be
understandable if they did.

I'm sick and tired of it. I'm sick of nice, sane,
friendly people defending war in terms of 'security' or 'freedom'. War as it is
fought today is obscene. It is streets filled with burning flesh, blood and
intestines. It is real people, REAL CHILDREN, screaming in fear and pain. It is
never fought with good cause, and is never conducted in as way that protects
innocent people and adheres to international law. There is no such thing as a
‘surgical strike’ - the war on Gaza
demonstrates that. War is terrible, unjust suffering inflicted on human beings
by other human beings. It is sick and evil and it can almost never be
justified. The pilots who brought down the World Trade Centre thirteen years
ago were criminals, not an army! The
fact that something needed to be done did not mean it was okay to invade,
occupy and flatten countries. It's never remotely okay to kill children, no
matter what the provocation.

I can no longer feel bothered to argue with people.
Anyone who thinks these atrocities are justified by 9/11 is either ignorant,
unaware or has no moral centre left. People justify Israel's actions in the last few
months even though 500 children were killed, and thousands more injured,
hundreds of thousands displaced, orphaned or traumatised. I don't even want to
speculate about the number of kids killed in Iraq
or Afghanistan.
And I am losing tolerance for people who defend these things. It’s not as if
the UN Charter and Geneva Conventions aren't available online for everyone to
see!

Rest in peace, all you thousands of victims of
9/11. Rest in peace, all you millions of people who suffered in the subsequent
War on Terror. Slaughtered civilians everywhere, your lives are all equal, even
though it is constantly implied that they aren't. Your deaths aren't
'regrettable but justified' - they are terrible, wicked crimes.

I’m aware that I need to find a calmer, more ‘Buddhist’ place in me that can
respond to these matters in a more centred way. But this is how I felt on 11th
September 2014. This is my 9/11 piece for this
year.

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About Me

2500 years ago, the dying Buddha said, "Be a light unto yourself, be a refuge for yourself. Take yourself to no external refuge." Recently, after years of chronic pain and anxiety, I've been searching for the place inside all of us which Tara Brach calls our 'true refuge' - the aware and compassionate space that lets us know we can handle whatever difficulties life brings. I'm hoping this blog will reflect that search. My interests include photography, nature and wildlife (especially foxes!), reading, music - and travelling, when I'm well enough. Please feel free to comment! All photos are mine unless otherwise credited.